


... And Cry 'Content' to That Which Grieves My Heart

by a_t_rain



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 15:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byerly goes to work on Richars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	... And Cry 'Content' to That Which Grieves My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is the same general universe as [Protective Coloration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2753243) and [Fidele](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3085118), and you should probably read "Protective Coloration" first if you are _really_ averse to spoilers for other people's fanfic, but otherwise they all stand on their own.
> 
> I didn't think it was quite graphic enough to merit an archive warning, but this does contain discussion of sexual-violence-related fantasies. (It's _Richars_ , it sort of had to.)
> 
> I love _Persuasion_ , but as Austen novels go, it's a bit short on the snark.

Dono had bet him two hundred marks it couldn’t be done; but Dono didn’t know he was getting _professional_ services at an amateur price. One of ImpSec’s rules was _no white-knighting_ , a vague term that encompassed a multitude of sins, most of which Byerly seemed to be guilty of most of the time. But as this was a private, family affair, ImpSec’s rules didn’t apply, and he was looking forward to having full scope to play the game _his_ way. What he was planning was more like _dark-knighting_ , anyway.

He’d been shadowing Richars on and off for a while, wearing sunglasses and jogging shorts; one of the benefits of cultivating a vivid public persona was that nobody noticed you when you weren’t playing yourself, particularly if your public-self definitely didn’t _jog_. His cousin, having been pre-empted in his plans to move into Vorrutyer House, had rented a flat in a neighborhood that was probably beyond his present means, although, of course, Richars _thought_ he’d be Count Vorrutyer before the bills came due. By now Byerly had a fairly good sense of his routine, which included nothing so plebeian as _work_ , although he did spend a fair amount of time socializing with members of the Conservative voting bloc and their associates. His afternoon and evening locations weren’t very predictable. Morning, alas, would be the best time to catch him _en famille_.

Byerly knocked at the door, and, when Richars unwisely opened it without looking to see who it was, wedged his foot in the doorway and then oozed the rest of his body in around it. It was a trick which he’d picked up, oddly enough, from his cat.

Getting a foot in the door, literally, was the easy part. The next few minutes would be much trickier; he would have to start off playing the annoying-and-disreputable-but-harmless relative, and then, by degrees, transforming himself into the Potentially Useful Relative. Richars, of course, would have to be the one to see the potential for usefulness. You _always_ let them think it was _their_ idea.

“What are you doing here?”

Richars was looking at him in annoyance but not outright suspicion. _Good_ , By thought, _he doesn’t remember what he did to me_. Judged by military-prep-school standards, most of it had been within the normal range of bullying – just _relentless_ , inflicted on a much smaller and younger child, and tinged with a psychological subtlety that had forced Byerly to develop subtleties of his own. Hmm. Perhaps it made more sense to think in terms of what Richars had done _for_ him. Yes, he thought he preferred that way of looking at it.

“Oh, nothing much. I heard you were in town, so I thought I’d pay a friendly social call.”

“Like hell it is. I’ve been warned about you, people say you always _want_ something.” (Naturally, he had taken care to make sure Richars _had_ been warned about him. People who always wanted things were people who could be _used_.) “So what is it that you want from me?”

“Coffee would be nice, for a start.”

Richars did not seem inclined to oblige, but his wife, who looked about as haggard and long-suffering as one would expect Richars’s wife to look, said, “I’ll go and make some.” _Excellent_. At least five minutes to brew, and another fifteen or so to sit around sipping at it. He’d gotten full confessions out of people in less time, although it helped if they were drinking something stronger than coffee.

He looked around the apartment, taking in the smeared, child-sized fingerprints on the coffee table and the rather shoddy workmanship beneath the shiny veneer. Two could play at the game of _dealing with people who want things_ , and there were a lot of potential _wants_ here. The place spoke eloquently of too many children, not enough money, no servants, and a great deal of quiet desperation. Unfortunately, the wife was likely to be more desperate than the husband, and he had no particular quarrel with Richars’s wife. He asked after the children and the District, gauging how best to ingratiate himself. Richars’s answers suggested no very deep affection for either.

“Did Donna send you?” Richars was finally awakening to some belated suspicions.

_Donna_ , not _Dono_. It appeared that Richars had not yet accepted certain ... facts. Very well, the quickest way in was also not to accept those facts.

“No, I haven’t seen much of Donna lately, although I shall be interested to observe the results of her little ... masquerade.” (A half-smirk: knowing, ironic; direct eye contact with Richars. People _trusted_ eye contact, which was almost always a mistake.)

“You always used to be such good friends.”

“Oh yes, I’m very fond of Donna, but the fact remains that you’re going to be the _Count_. And a man who has just come into possession of a Countship is _always_ in want of new friends. It’s one of those truths universally acknowledged.” (Jane Austen’s novels had been required reading for ImpSec’s Social Nuance course – all ten of them. It had been a task that Byerly had begun in the anticipation of tedium and had ended in considerable appreciation, although _Persuasion_ and _Imperium and Impetuosity_ had been a bit dry.)

“I’m not _in_ possession yet. Did you hear what that bitch did with the town house?”

“I heard. You will be, though. The most she can do is put up a temporary roadblock. Rather a nuisance, but ultimately ... ineffectual. I really don’t think this is a game she can win.” (A little emphasis on _I really don’t think_ ; just enough to make Richars wonder, subconsciously, why By had _needed_ to add a qualifier. And a _tiny_ upturn at the end of the sentence, not-quite-questioning.)

“How’d she even _know_ when the guards were going to show up? The Lord Guardian’s undersecretary was right there to meet them with a counter-order, like someone had tipped him off.”

Time to drop in a bit of gossip. Gossip about their cousin’s personal life, under the circumstances, was _bait_. “Ah. It seems that our Donna used to be very ... friendly with one of the municipal guard officers. Not a bad-looking fellow for a prole, by all accounts ...” ( _plebe_ might have been better, but he didn’t much like using that word, even in character) “... and since she was getting a bit long in the tooth, she couldn’t afford to be choosy. Oh, and apparently he’s a married man. Wife’s expecting, and you know how ... _lumpy_ they get just before a body-birth.” Byerly shuddered fastidiously, and then sniggered. “I don’t imagine _he’s_ going to be too happy about her little ... switch. Would have loved to see his face when she came back!”

Richars looked slightly disgusted at this speech, and By began to think he might have laid it on a bit too thick. Damn it all, one didn’t _expect_ Richars to react the way a decent person would. But all that he said was, “You know him?”

“Ah, no. Just heard about it from Donna. Plus a few details from other sources which shall remain nameless.”

“Did anybody say what the guardsman’s name was?”

_Yes! Hooked!_

“Don’t know. I’ll have to ask Donna about that.” Byerly made a mental note to ask his contact in the municipal guard for the name of a suitable colleague, preferably married, who had recently put in for an off-world holiday. Good looks and a pregnant wife weren’t required, since Richars wouldn’t be catching up with the couple.

“Would she tell you?” Richars asked, a little too eagerly.

“Oh yes. Donna trusts _me_. Not quite enough to _tell_ me beforehand about her little trip to Beta, mind, but ... in most things.” (A touch of jilted-friend pique, just catty enough to suggest it might be kindled into a deeper resentment.)

“Donna’s a _deep_ one,” said Richars. “I’m not sure she absolutely trusts anybody.”

Perfect: now Richars thought _he_ was the one doing the manipulation. Time to self-efface, bit by bit: react, agree, _listen_. “I’m starting to think you might be right.”

“What’s she got against me, anyhow?”

_Oh holy hell. He doesn’t remember what he did to Donna._

Byerly had been rather enjoying himself, with the enjoyment of an artist who usually worked on commission and had suddenly been handed unlimited scope for creativity, but this game had abruptly become less fun. He adopted an utterly blank expression, and shrugged. “Oh, you know. Women. Not always the most reasonable creatures.”

“I wouldn’t think _you’d_ know much about that,” said Richars.

Belatedly, he realized his hands had locked up, the way they did when people disgusted him. Thanks to an overactive imagination and considerable acting abilities, he’d been top in the class in disinformation training, but Captain Lenahan had docked him a few points for having overly expressive hands, and then taught him a variety of useful gestures that could conceal any lingering tension about the fingers. They were mostly of the grand, swishy, limp-wristed variety, and he trotted a few of them out now. “There’s where you’re wrong. I am a man of _varied_ tastes and experiences, coz.”

He was most certainly going to need a shower after this. Too bad he couldn’t bill ImpSec. (He had argued, years ago, that one really _needed_ a shower after dealing with certain crowds of people, and that he ought to be able to claim it as overtime. McSorley, his handler, had been in a tolerant mood after the Vorchandler case, and had granted the request. A week later, By had received a terse message informing him that _normal_ people didn’t take forty-five-minute showers, to which he’d dashed off a reply to the effect that if ImpSec could _find_ a normal person who was as good at the job as By was, they were welcome to hire _him_. Whereupon McSorley, damn him, had sent an even terser message indicating that he’d just forwarded the whole exchange to Simon Illyan, and for several terrifying minutes Byerly had _believed_ it.)

“What are you smirking at?”

“Guess.”

“You’re thinking ... we might be _useful_ to each other,” said Richars.

“Useful? In what way?”

“You _know_ a lot about Donna. She _talks_ to you. She wouldn’t ever talk to me. If you ... went on being yourself, and you _did_ talk to me, that would amount to the same thing.”

“Breaking a confidence,” Byerly mused, “is rather ... disloyal. Of course, they do say that loyalty always has a price, and now that you’ve mentioned it, I’m not sure Donna has been keeping up with the payments, of late.”

“What sort of payments do you usually expect?” (Good. _Now_ they were talking business, and that meant By had already won.)

“Oh, _my_ price isn’t terribly high. Bargain-sale loyalty.” ( _And worth exactly what you’re going to pay for it, dear cousin_.) “In your case ... what do you say to an invitation to the Emperor’s wedding, standing invitation to whatever parties you may be hosting as Count, and drop-by privileges at Vorrutyer House with access to the wine cellars?” (There wasn’t, as it happened, anything worth _drinking_ in the Vorrutyer House wine cellars, unless you were desperate. The last two Counts had had appalling taste – but so did Richars, so he wouldn’t know the difference.)

“Indefinitely?” Richars looked a little alarmed at the prospect, which was heartening. Byerly had just been wondering whether, in his haste to ask only for things Richars could grant _as Count_ , he had set his price suspiciously low.

“You’re going to be _Count_ indefinitely.”

“Fair point.”

“And you won’t find me ... ungrateful.” He allowed Richars to fill in the blanks with whatever his preferred form of gratitude might be, and hoped to God that it didn’t involve sex.

The long-suffering wife finally turned up with coffee. Byerly wondered what she was thinking of all this. He added a splash of cream; Richars, meanwhile, took a bottle of tablets from the pocket of his jacket, which had been draped over the back of the chair, and stirred one into his coffee.

“Keeping your girlish figure, coz? Good idea, given the familial tendency toward middle-aged spread. Poor Pierre was looking positively _inflated_ toward the end.” _No, those aren’t artificial sweeteners, are they? I think I recognize the prescription. You’d do much better to pass it off as recreational, like I do with mine ..._

Richars glared at him, but refrained from saying anything. The bottle went back into the jacket. _Not a good pocket in which to keep your vulnerabilities, dear coz. Pickpockets, you know._

It occurred to By that it would be trivially easy to pick up some real artificial sweeteners, and effect a substitution. If Richars should become Count, he might need to keep up the new-best-friend act, and keep doing it with every new batch of medication ... Simple, unlikely to be detected, and not so very immoral, really. He was pretty sure that Richars had committed two murders, and maybe even three – although he hadn’t been about to burden Donna by pestering her with questions about her third husband’s death, so _three_ was just conjecture.

Except. Richars would still have time to do plenty of damage, since the Vorrutyer heart defect didn’t kill very quickly or very reliably – or at _all_ , nowadays, unless it went completely untreated. Like, a-decade-of-being-too-paranoid-to-see-a-doctor untreated.

_Oh._ Luckily his fingers were already wrapped around his coffee cup; he forced himself to keep them exactly as they were, no telltale motion, no visible tightening. Make that as many as _four_ murders, the last a slow but nearly perfect one. If this were official business, this would be the part where he let Richars run, lead, take the Countship, overreach, entrap himself, fall into a slowly-woven but exceedingly fine net of justice. Except, where did that leave Dono and the District? That was the whole damn problem with justice; by the time you got the evidence, innocent people were already screwed.

There was a sudden squall from another part of the flat, presumably the nursery, and the long-suffering wife scuttled off. Richars abruptly leaned forward, in a confiding sort of way.

“ _Somebody_ needs to hold her down and teach her she isn’t a man, if you get my drift,” he said.

So that was Richars’s deepest _want_. Vile, but not at all surprising. But almost immediately, the instincts that By had honed over the last eight years kicked in: _This is a test. He’s a thug, but he isn’t stupid. You don’t arrange fatal lightflyer accidents and get away with it if you’re stupid._

The problem was that he wasn’t sure in which _direction_ he was being tested, or what Richars’s ideal man would say at that moment. It was just – _just_ – possible that it was _only_ a test, and that Richars wouldn’t trust anyone who _wasn’t_ properly revolted. It was more likely that the desire was real, but that he’d have better sense than to give his confidence to a visitor who agreed too heartily, particularly one who was known to be friendly with his potential victim. But, on the other hand, maybe what he wanted, needed, and craved was someone to _listen_ to the things he couldn’t say in respectable company, and to _accept_. That had happened before; people got remarkably unguarded when they thought they were talking to someone even more amoral than _they_ were.

So he let Richars talk, keeping his own expression carefully neutral and throwing in the occasional nod. People liked to talk, and they usually gave their real intentions and desires away if they talked long enough.

And oh, did Richars give himself away. His ideas about what ought to happen to their cousin were vivid, detailed, and graphically violent, in ways that suggested he’d been spending _years_ working them out. Even more disturbingly, they’d undergone one crucial revision now that the potential victim was male: they now involved someone _else_ doing his dirty work. Specifically, he had a job in mind for a conveniently-bisexual cousin who was also conveniently rumored, however wrongly and unfairly, to be a complete _pervert_.

He had to hand it to Richars: whether deliberately or accidentally, his cousin had managed to come up with a test that no decent man could pass: one that made By feel slightly sick just thinking about it, and he had a _strong_ stomach. He hadn’t known that private family affairs were so ... _squalid_. Well, maybe it was just _his_ family.

He suppressed a rising sense of panic, and fell back on a rule that had often served him well: _When all else fails, say the most outrageous thing that comes to mind and see where it takes you._

“Rape fantasies,” he said, “are _so_ played out.”

“Um-what?” said Richars, which wasn’t too surprising, because _Byerly_ felt like saying “Um-what?” even though the words had come out of _his_ mouth. Possibly not a good sign, that. “What do you mean, ‘played out’?”

“I mean, coz, that they are passé. Boring. _So_ last season.”

_Where did that come from?_ he wondered, and then _realized_ where it had come from. If you disregarded the aspects of Richars’s monologue that were terrifying or nauseating or both, you were, in fact, left with _boring_. He was willing to bet good money that the man bored _himself_ , with his mind perpetually running round and round in the same grooves.

And sure enough, Richars was leaning forward with an expression that was plainly _intrigued_. Quite accidentally, Byerly had just offered his cousin something that Richars hadn’t even _known_ he wanted: the promise of a brand _new_ fantasy, instead of the same tired old one he’d been having since he and Donna were _children_.

The dots began to connect and form a _shape_. They always did. Byerly started to see the potential for a particularly audacious endgame (ImpSec did not actually have a rule against audacity – he’d checked – but it was strongly discouraged). It was one that would have to be played very carefully, but he could see an _elegant_ payoff if everything lined up just right, one that promised not only _victory_ but at least a half-measure of _justice_.

Richars was still staring at him, half-flabbergasted and half-eager. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Use your imagination, cousin. But if you haven’t any ...” (of _course_ Richars hadn’t) “... you’re welcome to use _mine_.”


End file.
